How to Start Plants From Clippings

Most plants can be started from clippings, which involves taking a long stem where it meets a new leave line, dipping the tip in honey or peanut butter and planting it in a high-quality moist soil. Help a new clipping sprout roots with helpful information from a sustainable gardener in this free video on outdoor plants.

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Video Transcript

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to talk about how to start plants from clippings. Well there's many different plants in the world that you can start from clippings and I always say try it with any type of plant in the world, you can try it from a clipping and who knows it might grow. It's worth the effort. Now one of the easiest plants I have found to grow from a clipping is a geranium and it's really easy. So an easy time to take a start from a geranium is as soon as they're done blooming, they're blooms don't look good, I just once you are trimming it back anyway, now the point is when you trim you want to trim it to where it is meeting another leaf so you cut it right at an angle where it is meeting that leaf. Now you can put that right into water or right into soil alone and keep that soil moist and it will start to set roots immediately. I have even put geraniums right to the side in a flower bed, just put some dirt over them and they've started to grow that way too. Now I have found honey is the best root tone there is so it's worth the effort. It gives it lots of sugars and it seems to work really well as a bonding agent so I just put a little bit of honey in a shot glass and then I just dip my plant into the honey, just make sure there is some honey on the bottom of it and then turn around and just plant that right into the soil and make sure it is still covered a couple inches deep. A lot of times if you trim off some of the bottom leaves that helps a lot too and then you just want it to grow some more leaves as it comes up and a lot of times too if you just trim out the flowers too it will encourage some new growth but you still want to have some leaves on there too so it gets some energy from photosynthesis. Now geraniums are really to start but roses are also easy to start and you can just take a stem of a rose and the same thing, just cut it where it meets another leaf line and turn around and put that in water and it will start growing roots and it's as simple as that or another trick you put it right into the honey again and turn around and put it into soil, keep that soil moist but kind of dry it out a little bit in between and not so it is sitting in water because it might rot too and then it will turn around and set roots and you can have your own plants.